2 Responses to “Jacob Wrestles With the Angel – Parshat Yayishlach”

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Wrestling was a favorite sport in Greece. During his recorded travels & investigations, the Greek historian Herodotus (485-430 B.C.) discovered that one of the ancestors of the Israelites had been a wrestler who had won a wrestling match.

The Greek word for wrestler is palaistes. So Herodotus gave the Greek name Palaistine to the Land of Israel, the Land of the Wrestler.

For it was Jacob who wrestled with the angel guardian of Esau his brother (Genesis 32:24-28) for Jacob’s inheritance rights over the Land of Israel & for Jacob’s rights from his father’s Isaac blessings to Jacob as first born.

At Peniel Jacob’s name was changed into Israel:
‘God’s warrior’, (Genesis 32:29) “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel, because you have commanding power with [an angel of] God and with men, and you have prevailed.”
or in another translation ‘he who wrestled with [an angel of] God’.

Herodotus also showed the men of Palaistine were circumcised, where as the Philistines were not!
The Jewish philosopher Philo also identified Palaistine with the biblical land of Canaan.
Aristotle described the Dead Sea, being situated in Palaistine.

Some insist that Roman Emperor Hadrian renamed Judaea as Syria Palaestina after the long gone ancient Philistines Tribes ,
Others today insist to attribute the name palestinians after the long gone Philistines Tribes to give historical, territorial and sovereignty credence to the today antisemite Koranic narratives of the IslamoNazis Jihadis portrayed as palestinians,

The earliest IslamoNazi Allah Dictators that, for Jihad Expansion agenda, occupied the Land of Israel, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt etc… picked up the name Filistine as in Palestine from the Former Empires that Occupied those said Lands (6 & 7 & 4)

There is circumstantial evidence linking Hadrian with the name change, although the precise date is not certain, And the assertion of some scholars that the name change was intended “to complete the dissociation with Judaea” is disputed – See More at Timeline of the name “Palestine” (5)

In c.390, Syria Palaestina was reorganised into the several administrative units: Palaestina Prima, Palaestina Secunda, and Tertia (in the 6th century)(4)

However
The earliest numismatic evidence for the name Syria Palæstina comes from the period of emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (Roman Emperor from c. AD 161 to 180) (2)
And though The Roman historian Cassius Dio (c. AD ~ 155 – 235) who wrote in Greek, does not mention the change of name nor the reason behind it in his “Roman History”.(2)

Herodotus wrote in c. 450 BC in The Histories of a ‘district of Syria, called Palaistinê” whence Palaestina, from which the name Palestine is derived (3).